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The Echo
Opinions: Public Display of Annoyance
F RIDAY S EPTEMBER 5
2008
TAYLOR U NIVERSITY VOLUME 96, N O. 3
Truck driver in van accident released By Andrew neel
Co-Editor in Chief Robert Spencer, the truck driver convicted on five reckless homicide charges in the Taylor van accident on April 26, 2006, was released from prison on August 29. Spencer will serve the remainder of his sentence, given in August 2007, on probation. “I know I’ll have to deal with this the rest of my life,” Spencer said at his sentencing hearing, according to WTHR. com. The daughters of Monica Felver, the
BY BRENT CLOUSE CONTRIBUTOR It was no ordinary Welcome Weekend for Bergwall’s second floor when new students found their rooms already occupied. The bedbugs were discovered just two days before the freshmen moved into the dorm, and exterminators from Indiana Pest Control, Inc. arrived the next day. Upperclassmen stayed temporarily in the Fairlane apartments while the freshmen and transfer students lived in the non-infected dorm rooms. “It was a little frustrating,” said sophomore Matt Rasband. “We didn’t get to hang out with the new freshmen.” Freshman Brady Schaar said his first few days on campus were a little crazy. “We felt like we were in limbo for a while when we searched our rooms for bugs,” Schaar said. “You didn’t know you had them until it was too late.”
By Benita Lee News Editor
It may not be as conspicuous as the Bergwall covered bridge, but Taylor underwent an important change this summer. This year, Taylor welcomes a new academic school structure that brings three new administrators to Taylor. The deans in this redesigned structure are: Thomas Jones, dean of the School of Liberal Arts; Connie Lightfoot, founding dean of Taylor’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies; Mark Biermann, dean of the School of Natural Sciences; and Chris Bennett, Associate Provost and dean of International Programs. Jones has been a member of Tay-
BY ANDREW NEEL CO-EDITOR IN CHIEF When Facebook was first launched over four years ago, it marked the beginning of a dramatic change in the realm of online communication. Now, the popular social networking Web site is forcing Taylor’s Information Technology department to makes changes of its own. Rob Linehan, Taylor’s Chief Information Officer, said the campus network lost its connection to the Internet several times last week and this week. This crash was caused because the net-
News
duce the chances of a person being weary,” he said. “If he had followed the law ... I don’t think this would have happened.” Luttrull said that his heart goes out to the Taylor community and that no amount of time Spencer could have served could have made up for the loss of life that resulted from the accident. “Even those of us without close ties to the victims or the families will never forget them,” he said. “I still, to this day, marvel about what (the victims) accomplished in really short lives. I pray that those who are still mourning will be comforted.”
staff member who was killed in the accident, said in a statement that Spencer’s release was earlier than it should have been. “(Spencer) sentenced all of the victim’s families to a lifetime of hurt, loneliness and complete loss,” said the statement released to the Hartford City News-Times on August 28. Colleen Cerak, mother of Whitney Cerak, the Taylor student who was injured in the accident and involved in the case of mistaken identity that propelled the story to national prominence, said her family harbors no bitterness towards Spencer.
“We are glad that he’s able to be back with his family. We know that it was just an accident,” she said. “And our prayers always still go to the other families. This is obviously something that they’ll be dealing with … missing their children, and we continue to pray for them every day.” According to a statement issued by Taylor, the University does not have a comment on Spencer’s release, other than to keep the families of the victims in prayer. Grant County Prosecutor James Luttrull, Jr. said Spencer’s sentencing was a complex issue for the court.
“The judge had to consider – not only the loss of life – but what were the defendant’s intentions, actions and prior record,” Luttrull said. “He had no intent to hurt anyone. He was trying to get his load to Ft. Wayne on time. What he did do was consciously and intentionally disregard the rest laws for his profession. I believe he needed to be held accountable for that.” Luttrull said the fact that Spencer, who was not speeding or driving under the influence of any substance, was sentenced to prison, did, in fact, send a message. “Those (rest laws) are there to re-
Mike Nafziger, a P.A on Second Bergwall, said the hardest part of the situation was explaining what was happening to the freshmen’s moms. “A lot of them freaked out when they heard their students’ dorm rooms had bedbugs,” Nafziger said. Luckily for the mothers (and the students), the situation is now under control. According to Wikipedia (Carrisa find a good source for this), bedbugs are nocturnal insects that live off the blood of humans and other warmblooded hosts. They are reddishbrown, oval-shaped, roughly a quarter of an inch long, and usually live along mattress linings and pillow cases. Characteristically, bedbug bites occur in a pattern of three bites in a row, each one resembling a red, upraised bump. The bites are painless and have the tendency to itch like poison ivy. Similarly, poison ivy medication such as calamine lotion is the best way to
heal the bites and stop the itching. The process of ridding the rooms of bedbugs is a long one and includes the use of both pesticide spray and a sticky material that resembles fly paper. In addition, plenty of time is spent in the laundry room washing everything. “It was a little crazy with all the laundry piled up in the lounge,” Nafziger said. Unfortunately, bed bugs travel fast and multiply like rabbits. If they aren’t all exterminated at once, the process must be repeated over and over. “We even had to throw away someone’s sofa just to make sure we got them all out,” Rasband said. “It’s definitely been an interesting first week.” “It’s just really hard to make sure you’ve got them all out before you move back in,” Nafziger said. “Now we can’t help but feel a little itchy every time we go to bed – I think our minds are playing tricks on us.”
Senior Patrick Gray moves books back into his room on August 29.
lor’s faculty since 1988. He supports the change to the school structure and said it was efficient and beneficial to both students and faculty. Jones’ role has changed from the dean of Arts and Sciences to being more focused on the arts, humanities and social science. “Each of the deans is responsible for providing leadership and oversight in our schools,” Jones said. “We work with the department chairs in all areas that relate to curriculum and personnel.” Jones said that a major result of the change to school structure is that department chairs no longer report to an associate dean. “They report directly to a school dean. We’ve eliminated that middle layer of administration oversight,” he
said. Jones said this change allows for an increase in efficiency, as more decisions and changes affecting the curriculum can be made at the department level. This redesign of academic structure also affected Bennett, another longtime faculty member. Bennett became a part of the Taylor faculty in 1988 and has gained numerous recognitions in international business since then. Bennett said there will be “no change in the day-to-day operation” for students and faculty because of the redesigned school structure. But if they have questions or grievances, they would “have quicker access to a higher level decision-maker in the university.”
“Our logic is that we are now putting decision-making closer to the programs because the deans have much more authority,” said Bennett. “Because they are full-time administrators, they are able to devote themselves to moving the programs forward strategically.” Biermann and Lightfoot are ready to take up the challenge as new full-time administrators at Taylor. Biermann was the chair of the physics and astronomy department at Eastern Kentucky University before coming to Taylor. He describes his current position as the “perfect combination” of his background in science and his interest in administration work. “I’m very pleased to be at Taylor,” Biermann said. “I think that one of the
work exceeded the amount of connections handled by the Barracuda content filter. The filter, he said, can take up to 5,500 concurrent connections. The connection limit has been surpassed several times recently due in large part to high traffic to Facebook, where each application on a profile page requires a separate connection. In response to the network crash, Linehan collaborated with Dean of Student Development Skip Trudeau to send an e-mail to all students requesting that they limit their Facebook usage and close out of Facebook when they’re not using it.
“At this point the call to students is, basically, to use Facebook wisely,” Trudeau said. Both Trudeau and Linehan said they want students to be able to take advantage of Facebook as much as possible, but Trudeau emphasized the fact that Facebook is a lower priority than academic web sites. “If we can help through our own individual behavior to provide a sociological solution, that will help the technical solution, because the technical solutions aren’t cheap, and they aren’t easy,” Trudeau said. Linehan, however, said that a technical solution also needs to be researched if Barracuda cannot resolve the problem. The IT staff members have been in contact with Barracuda, other vendors and other Christian colleges to research this problem and come up with a list of possible solutions. Fixing the problem will not be quick, Linehan said, as he predicts that even in an ideal situation, a change would still take up to four weeks to complete.
Photo by Timmy Huynh
BY HANNAH BEERS NEWS EDITOR In a historic step forward, two programs―computer engineering and engineering physics―received national accreditation from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. (ABET) ABET is a respected national organization that awards quality assurance to academic programs that meet its standards. This marks the first time a Taylor program has been ABET accredited. “We have had the two engineering programs for a while, and we’ve been working to get those accredited,” Dean of Sciences Mark Biermann said. “For the last two years, we’ve been doing all the background work, the legwork, and the paperwork.” The accreditation gives Taylor extra recognition to an already-competitive program. Few Christian liberal arts colleges offer engineering programs, and fewer have ABET accreditation, Biermann said. Provost Steve Bedi is optimistic
best things about it is that both the faculty and students … have a very clear sense of the mission of what we’re all about. Our mission is to fulfill the great commission of Christ, and you can’t have a better mission than that.” Biermann said his job is to “provide leadership and support and facilitate the activities of the newly established School of Natural Sciences … to try and help all the areas do their jobs in the best way possible.” Lightfoot, a Taylor alumna, taught at different colleges before returning to Taylor. She said the new structure will allow departments to be much more agile, flexible and quick in response. “My goal is just to help them to react quickly when they need things or have an issue,” Lightfoot said.
about the accreditation’s effect on student recruitment “Students will know they are coming to a program that is based upon highquality standards,” said Bedi. “With more students on campus, we can do more research projects, we can do more of everything,” Biermann said. Bedi predicted that the engineering program at Taylor will see expansion in the future―perhaps to include an electrical engineering major. “There are plans to expand the programs, particularly after the new science facility is finished,” Bedi said. “We are definitely going to explore other opportunities that we sense prospective students are interested in studying,” Students currently studying engineering will also benefit from Taylor’s accreditation. “It will definitely help them as they seek positions in the job market after Taylor,” Bedi said. “It will speak a higher level of confidence in the quality of the graduates from Taylor.”